Chchchchanges…for the better. It’s been a busy few months for the glorified-one-man-show, as we enter the busy Holiday season. Lots of road time and working 6 days a week, leaves little time for else. A few Jets home games have been my R & R. The fishing has been non-existent as we are in a serious drought and river water levels are ridiculously low, so I don’t fish to avoid stressing any surviving trout. Well, about those changes…

So happy to have Bodega Bouza back in our portfolio. They make the best Tannat on the planet along with some other great wines, especially the Albarino. I’ve also added a really tasty Chianti from Il Muro “The Wall”, how apropos…Working on adding 2-3 new producers in the Spring as well. At the same time I’m culling a few wineries for different business reasons – the main one being I have other wines that sell way better. Rad Grapes is unfortunately parting ways with Fiddletown Cellars, Labor Wines and HB Wine Merchants with the 5 producers we’ve carried from them. All great wines, but like they say, “we’ve decided to go in a new direction.”

Part of the issue I’ve been having is being out of stock at times, of wines I should not be out of stock on, since they sell so well. At the same time I have these other wines that are tying up cash-flow in inventory, as they’re not moving as well as they had in the past and they’re also costing me extra in terms of inventory expense. It’s basically keep what is moving and beef up inventory on those items, while culling wines that don’t perform. Common sense. In the meantime, I’ve been working on adding a few wines in categories we could really use. Some fun stuff as always, stay tuned…

One other thing I’ve been doing is targeting some new accounts and trying to rekindle relationships with a few old customers that fell off the radar. Both have actually gone well. Life is so much about timing…

Sales have been better, than the slow-ass summer, but nothing to write home about until this week. I’ve been getting reports from my retail customers that the entire election week and especially so Election Day, were extremely busy. Drink away America.

Call it what you will; time off, vacation, R&R…for us mere mortals it is not always easy or possible, even when we are willing to take any significant time off. However…most of us, even the workaholics, like me – It’s ok, I really love what I do – have the need to wind down and get away from the regular day to day, to give to body, mind & soul some rest.

I prefer doing that with a bunch of long weekends, instead of lets say two weeks off. I own a business and that has yet to be feasible. Taking time to fly-fish when I can, going kayaking or just spending time at home relaxing, is especially needed if you work long hard hours. In the end you will always end up being more productive when you rest your body, mind & soul.

To that point, I’ve been on the beach down at Long Beach Island – LBI for a couple of days and it is amazing what a calming effect the ocean has on you. It doesn’t hurt that I got the chance to do soem serious fishing for fluke & blue fish on Friday & Saturday on Rony’s boat in Barnegat Bay. Hooked several 2 foot plus blues. What a fight! Talk about recharging, apparently we have a huge BBQ order coming for later. Don’t worry, I’ve the wine side covered for all the adults, Lava Cap Cab,Dos Fincas Malbec & Bouza Tannat. Manly-men BBQ wines. Cheers!

You may reading or hearing about the rise in popularity of Rose, or you may be just unwittingly contributing to the recent craze just by drinking and enjoying some Rose wine. What’s going on? Why has Rose become so popular?

I explain it as a generational perception dislocation. Until recently most Americans older than 45-50 had the inherent perception that most if not all Rose was like White Zinfandel, as in sweet. As many ladies or guys that enjoyed or were introduced to wine drinking with White Zinfandel, it also turned off what I think are several generations, like boomers and Gen-Xers to Rose. Most, I said. Back when i started selling wine and for a number for years it was an uphill battle selling too much fry Rose from anywhere. Well what do you know? Those age groups, have been slowly converted to the dry-side and is certainly part of where the growth in sales comes from. The other is Millenials. They are the most adventurous wine drinking generation I have ever seen, especially so in this ‘globally saturated’ NY wine market. That is a good thing for wine drinkers with an adventurous palate. Try anything! Rose? The selection is most wine shops is staggering. 15, 20 maybe 25 different Roses from all over the world. Years ago selling just Provencale Rose was tough. Now if you have good juice at a good price, it doesn’t matter where it comes from.

That leads me to talk about shortages of Rose. These wines are usually not made in huge quantities. Those producers that released early in March are running out. That leaves room for us, since we tend to add Roses later than a lot of other people, literally waiting for ‘Rose weather’. The advantage to that is that at this time of summer when our customers start running out of a Rose or two, we’ve got inventory, usually well into the Fall and can come to the rescue. I must add that I refer to our Roses as #BRoses. Refreshing, delicious fruit, with amazing acidity, good structure AND length. I hate wimpy Roses…

Here’s what we have in stock now guys:

2015 La Villa Real Tempranillo Rose – La Mancha, Spain

2015 Del Rio Vineyards Rose – Rogue Valley, Oregon

2015 Domaine Bel Eouve – Coteaux D’Aix en Provence, France

Rad Grapes wines aren’t everywhere, but can be found all over NY state…if you can’t find something shoot me an e-mail or call.

A few years back, and for several years Rad Grapes represented the Vina Amalia wines from Carlos Basso in NY. The line we originally sold included the Vina Amalia Malbec Reserva and the Vina Amalia Cabernet Reserva. These were not wines that I imported, but bought from and importer to distribute in NY. The quality of the fruit and winemaking is fantastic. One of the disadvantages (and not always) of buying wine from other importers to sell, is that they can sometimes switch distributors and not for lack of sales either…like a political thing or a new general manager comes in and poof…well that’s exactly what happened to the Vina Amalia wines. We lost them…

Long story short, the distributor where the wines went didn’t get the job done. Nothing close to what I had sold. I was asked to take the wines back AND a few years ago Carlos Basso and his son Adolfo have added a number of new wines. Not only did we get the Vina Amalia wines back, but added to the mix are the Dos Fincas Malbec, Dos Fincas Sauvignon Blanc and the Dos Fincas Chardonnay. Bonus.

You know of my belief that 90% of what makes a good wine is the vineyard and quality of the fruit. We got that. Finca La Amalia where the Vina Amalia Malbec Reserva comes from is also the source for Dos Fincas Malbec fruit. Located in Altamira, San Carlos, south of Mendoza this 40 acre vineyard is planted 100% to Malbec. Warm days and cool night give the fruit great balance and expression.

Finca Los Montes Negros is located at over 3700 feet of altitude in Los Arboles, Tunuyan, Valle del Uco Mendoza and is planted to a total of eight varietals spread out over 200 acres of vineyard. Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay for Dos Fincas also sourced from there. Amazingly clean and balanced fruit across the board. The fruit is all hand picked! I also like the fact that the oak used is all French, making the wines tasting like much more classical examples of the varietals. Great for sipping and even better with food.

Yes Virginia, we now sell some awesome Gavi, Barolo and Barbaresco too…

Since I’ve been remiss in posting regularly about so many new happenings at Rad Grapes as mentioned in a recent post, I’m fixing that.

Last Fall I added the incredible Sassaia wines from Azienda Vitivinicola Bergaglio Pier Carlo located in Monferrato, in the heart of Tuscany. The wines are amazing across the board and value priced to boot.

There are two DOCG Gavis, two Barberas, a Monferrato Rosso blend 1/3 each of Nebbiolo, Barbera and Cabernet, DOCG Barbaresco and DOCG Barolo. Half bottles of Gavi, Barbaresco and Barolo are also available. Waaa? Nice, right? You really have to try the wines. My favorites are the Blue label Gavi made from 70+ year old vines and the Barolo, currently the 2010 vintage is drinking impeccably.

The wines are available throughout NY since I’ve been selling them for about 8-9 months, but there’s lots more work to be done.

In the meantime if you wish to have your mind whisk you away momentarily into the Tuscan Hillside, check out the winery’s website.

I’ve been posting seldom over the last year or so for a number of reasons. Sometimes life just gets in the way, but the main reason has been getting access to the actual blog website. It’s taken me a long time to figure out that the DNS settings on the router and server that hosts Stonedwino were not set up properly. The site would just load soooo slowly, I couldn’t even log in to post. That has finally been corrected.

Now I have incentive to post more often. There are so many new wines, producers and wine business news to talk about. Need to pace myself…

Rad Grapes is very happy and proud to welcome the La Villa Real wines from Bodegas La Remediadora. The winery was founded in 1946 and boasts great vineyards in Roda, near Albacete, located at over 700 meters above sea level. The wines are amazingly delicious across the board and all priced at $10 or less retail! The current selection includes a 2015 Macabeo, 2015 Sauvignon Blanc, 2015 Tempranillo Rose and 2015 Tinto Joven Tempranillo/Syrah blend. One tastier than the next. Wines are already available in NYC, Hudson Valley and Long Island. Upstate soon…

What’s the secret? LOL…hard work & location! I’ve been searching for really good and cheap wines (no, it’s not a n oxymoron – hard, but not impossible to pull off). The place to look for the cheap stuff is La Mancha, a huge appellation encompassing more vines & vineyards that any other place on earth. La Mancha is a high plateau south of Madrid with a dry, somewhat temperate and at time arid climate. They key to finding the right wines, was based on searching La Mancha based on geography & elevation. Why? For the length and balance of the wines. Huh? Well, in dry places, they have no issues ripening grapes, yet they do have issues getting good acidity, balance and length on their wines at times. What’s the remedy? Find the perfect winery, with the perfect wines, in the perfect micro climate…

Bodegas La Remediadora winery and vineyards are located in a renown grape growing area of La Mancha, just north of Albacete called La Roda. That would be about half way from Madrid traveling SE towards Murcia. Stunningly beautiful part of Spain…The winery and it’s partners have a bunch of varietals planted in its vineyards, all located above 700 meters of altitude. Aha! Altitude. Yes. In arid areas, the days are hot and perfect for ripening grapes from Tempranillo to Sauvignon Blanc and even Syrah. As soon as the sun starts setting, we see drastic temperature drops due to radiational cooling. With no moisture around to retain extra heat, any warmth that has been retained by the earth and vineyards, especially at higher elevations, is very easily evaporated into the atmosphere as the night cools things off to let the vines breathe. So what’s the big deal? In la Roda they have really cool, clear sky nights. That contrasts the heat of the day perfectly. Hot sun to ripen the grapes, along with cool night for added balance and acidity. Acidity? Bingo. It’s the perfect glue to make the perfect wines with good aromatics, nice fruit, a solid mid palate and a good long finish – all thanks to good acidity.

I must have tasted over 300 wines from Castilla y La Mancha over the years, searching for the perfect wines and price points for my wine portfolio. Only after I had the revelation that I should narrow my search to wineries from the geographically higher areas of La Mancha did I run into the right winery and the right wines.

Within 10 days of the first shipment of 4 pallets of La Villa Real wines arrived to our warehouse and only after a week of selling them in NY, I had to place another order with the winery. I realized within days that we would not be able to supply the demand and interest, without significantly increasing our inventory. You make your own luck…

Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. I learned from my mistakes and learned well. Cheers!

It’s been a while, for many reasons…The server that Stonedwino is hosted on has had some issues from decrepit broadband speed, DNS settings issues and a host of other technical issues.

Between downsizing to a smaller house, moving, settling in, looking at colleges with the girls, life and running Rad Grapes, I have just not had the time to deal with the Stonedwino IT issues until today. I am so damn proud of myself…Mr. IT-geek. I think I fixed the issues. I will have to do a little more testing, but it seems that now the website downloads quickly instead of being ridiculously slow like it has been lately – so damn slow I have not been able to log in remotely to post!

Now that I’ve eliminated most excuses, maybe I will get back to posting somewhat more regularly.

I moved the family in September downsizing to a smaller 4 bedroom rental, ditching the big house with pool and huge yard. Reality dictates otherwise, with triplet daughters heading to college in less than two years. Had to be done….and let me tell you, we moved just in time. We down sized from Wyckoff to Franklin Lakes. Yeah, I know how that sounds…

We have settled in nicely into our Cape. It reminds us of our first house. Very quaint and picturesque. With the move, painting the whole inside of the rental house, fixing a bunch of little things and getting settled in, we literally lost track of time. The girls started the Junior year of High School and I got swept up in OND wine business crazy schedule.

After a very long, slow summer that lasted into the end of September, I was yearning for and badly needed for sales to pick up. I got my wish. We had barely gone through the craze of moving and settling when, when October rolls around and…wham. Boy did business pick up! My 6 day a week work schedule has been nuts, but rewarding. This time of year the days are long and some nights made even longer with many and in-store wine tasting booked to pour and promote my wines. Hey it helps my customers and sells more wine. Giddy up.

November has been even better when it comes to sales and business. I hope the pace keeps up all the way until Christmas. My schedule will continue as busy until Thanksgiving, when I get a 4 day weekend. After I catch my breath and feed my face with Turkey and pie, there’s the last mad December stretch all the way until Christmas Eve and a long Christmas weekend. I hope get the chance to do a little fly-fishing both of those long weekends and perhaps fit in a Jets home game or two for some real R&R.

I really hope my next post isn’t months away like recently…heck, life got in the way!